The Republican nominee, during an event in Colorado Springs, re-litigated controversies involving Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, his mockery of a reporter with a disability and his false claim that Muslims celebrated September 11.

Despite his lascivious past, Trump has been polling surprisingly well with evangelical Christians, so his campaign stop in Colorado Springs – arguably the evangelical capital of the US – played more as a rallying of the base than an appeal to undecided voters. The 1,250-capacity room he appeared at could only hold a fraction of those who began queuing seven hours early for the event, the endless line stretching throughout the University of Colorado campus. Most were turned away, with Trump railing against the fire marshal for not letting more of them inside, using the dilemma as an allegory for what’s wrong with America.

In his free-jazz speaking style, Trump criss-crossed his way through a number of topics, doubling down on the violent threat of refugees and immigrants, insisting his RNC speech “wasn’t dark” but “optimistic”, and that Bernie Sanders “sold his soul to the devil”.

Trump defended his discredited statement that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City celebrated the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center by dancing in the streets. He also insisted he did not deride Serge Kovaleski, a reporter at the New York Times who disputed his claims, in a November campaign stop. “I didn’t know he was disabled. I started imitating somebody that was groveling,” said Trump on Friday. Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that affects joint movement.

The Republican nominee insisted he would never mock people with disabilities. Trump’s defense was that he spends millions of dollars to make his buildings compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as that he has “a good heart” and is “a smart person”.

Trump also insisted yet again that he did not make a menstruation reference when he said Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly had “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” while questioning him during a debate in August 2015. He insisted he meant “ears” or “nose” in his comments, which led to him being uninvited from the RedState Gathering, a major conservative confab.

The Republican nominee did target Clinton as well. He said to a crowd chanting “lock her up” about the former Secretary of State: “I am starting to agree with you.” Trump went on to indicate that he would step up his attacks against his opponent.

“I don’t have to be so nice anymore, I’m taking the gloves off,” Trump said. “Just remember this, Trump is going to be no more Mr Nice Guy.” Trump has already dubbed Clinton “crooked Hillary” and repeatedly used the phrase on the campaign trail in recent months.

The Republican nominee also complained about Nato and US military aid to overseas allies. In particular, Trump expressed his discontent that “we pay rent for our base to Saudi Arabia”. The US closed its main military base in Saudi Arabia, Prince Sultan Air Base, in 2003.

Trump also repeatedly bashed the local fire marshal, whom Trump jokingly suggested was “probably a Democrat” for not letting more people into the event. He also promised voters that if second world war general George Patton was still alive, he would not use email.

Before the rally, in an interview with a local news station, Trump also contradicted Republican policy on fracking by coming out in favor of local and state bans on the method of extracting natural gas by injecting a mix of water and chemicals into the ground.

Colorado has been perhaps the toughest of the traditional swing states for Trump. He has been consistently trailing Clinton by roughly 10 points in head-to-head match ups in the state, where 21% of the population is Hispanic.

The state’s Republican party is dominated by social conservative activists who overwhelmingly rejected Trump in April’s state convention, sending a delegation to Cleveland where every elected member was a Ted Cruz supporter. Further, Colorado’s delegation became the hotbed of anti-Trump activism at the RNC with one delegate, Kendal Unruh, leading the quixotic effort to unbind delegates in a last ditch attempt to stop Trump.

Efforts to excite the Republican base have also been depressed by the election of Darryl Glenn as the party’s nominee for Senate in November. Glenn, a lackluster fundraiser, has already been written off by Washington Republicans and is unlikely to provide any help to the top of the ticket.

Trump’s motorcade was a bit late getting to Denver for Trump’s appearance at the Wings Over The Rockies Air and Space museum. While waiting for him to arrive, a speaker who identified himself as “a member of the LGBT community” chastised Clinton for attempting to claim gay rights for the Republican party, tying Clinton to her husband’s signing of the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act. A soldier who survived the Benghazi attacks was then introduced, before it was discovered he wasn’t present at the event, leading to a 30-minute musical intermission. The restless crowd began chanting “we want Trump!” as the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want played.

Once Trump arrived, he launched into a critique of Clinton’s DNC acceptance speech, claiming she painted too “rosy dory” a picture of the US in its current state. “We’ve had more police shootings over the last year, I mean, nobody’s ever seen anything like what’s going on.” While it’s true that police killings have risen in the past year, they are lower than in previous decades.

Trump also hammered Clinton for her intention of accepting more refugees from the Middle East into the US.

“The people coming in from Syria, we have no idea who they are. Remember, they cut the heads off people, they drown people in steel cages.”

Trump’s Denver speech was given while he stood before an enormous B-1 bomber plane, an aircraft known primarily for hosting nuclear weapons, which was an apt dynamic considering Clinton’s statement the night before that “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

After claiming he was for both “fair trade” and “free trade”, Trump said there were some “business people, vicious, horrible, miserable human beings . . . who would love to represent us against Japan”, suggesting that these cutthroat businessmen were just the ticket to bring down our trade deficit with eastern countries.

Baiting the crowd with several references to the Denver Broncos, Trump repeatedly promised to make Colorado a centerpoint to his presidential campaign. “We have to win this state. I’m going to be here so much, you’re going to say ‘please, OK, we’ll vote for you, don’t come back here any more’.”